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Description
It was a run that spared nothing for dignity; everything sacrificed for the sake of speed. Dirt-smeared fingers clutched at a shapeless, cloth-wrapped lump, legs pounding in wide motions on the ruined street.

It was silent at first; his footsteps all but echoed against the pavement. Then came the cries.

A thousand of them at once, a hellish sound spewed from the countless mob of gaping red throats. So many black bodies scrambling on short legs while red eyes blazed. Someone of poetic persuasion might describe them as a legion of Hell; surely the beasts in their mad scramble formed a sort of rank, one particularly adventurous one with better-developed appendages out in front like a commanding officer.

The runner glanced back, a quick movement that threw dark brown bangs away from his face. Same-colored eyes studied the distance, the number of the creatures, and came to a conclusion.

He veered off the path.

These were the lesser predators; certainly deadly for the numbers they traveled in, but stupid. Still young, young and small, with no way of understanding the dog-eat-dog world that the town had become. They did not spare a second, galvanized by the presence of untainted energy, the scent of blood…

The runner stopped, his shoes biting into the dry, cracked soil. He turned, aimed, and kicked hard at the ground, his foot angled to strike with the edge of his shoe.

The earth beneath him bucked like a wave in a lake; as it rolled towards the demons it swelled and grew, and suddenly the wave was bristling with spikes that bit into unprotected slime with a cacophony of shrieks. The impaled burst like balloons, splattering black ichor across the ruins of a garden.

He didn't wait to see how many he had taken down, or which of the remainder were fighting through the spikes to continue the chase. He just turned and kept going, ducking between two derelict houses.

It was the eighth day of the Plague. If there were any psychologists in the area not fighting for their lives, locked in their own head, or otherwise occupied, it was also conclusive proof that anything, even monsters quite possibly from the bowels of the underworld itself, could become routine if one survived it long enough.

A massive earthen wall filled his sight; even in the few short days that he'd come to call it 'home', it was still a great source of relief from the demon-infested streets.

Without breaking stride, he leapt onto it, scrabbling up the sheer face as well as one can with only three limbs available and an unwieldy burden. It was just dirt, all told, but it held like rock… except when he needed a handhold, or a foothold, where his fingers just sank into it like it was… well, dry, powdery dirt, like the kind that it really was and not what it acted like when he wasn't climbing it.

He reached the top relatively easily, grabbing the rim and hauling himself over without even being all that out of breath. The run was more tiring than climbing his makeshift refuge. Well, their. He supposed he owed that much to the tower's other occupant.

"The hell were you doing down there?" It was about as much of a greeting as he was going to get. Whether it was from being near-completely paralyzed or the fact that everything around them was a wasteland worthy of the apocalypse, the stranger seemed to be in some degree of bad mood 24-7. He had a feeling that part of it was just the other's MO.

"Oh, evil monsters trying to eat my flesh." He set about untying the bundle and checking its contents. He'd grabbed mostly cans, figuring that stockpiling didn't hurt in times like these.

"What else is new?" There was a slight shift in movement across the platform. Sandy hair, lighter brown eyes, the left of which still boasted a fantastic purple-black bruise from a certain up-close and personal encounter with a scrap of pavement. He still felt bad about that, but at least it wasn't quite as bad as it had been.

Neither of them had mentioned anything in the way of a name. It just hadn't come up. When they needed something, a "hey" sufficed, and it wasn't as if they had to identify who they were talking to.

The lighter-haired man tilted his head a bit, trying to make out what he was doing without drawing attention to the need for further movement. The broken spine was a sore point, probably from the heavy feeling of dependence that came with it; he could move his head and neck, and periodically his shoulders would twitch in an encouragingly voluntary manner, but that was it, and no further motor skills seemed forthcoming. Finally, curiosity won over pride. "What's that?"

"Cans. Hope you like soup, because that's pretty much all there was. I wasn't the first person to think of a grocery store, apparently." With a few, quick movements of his wrist, he opened a bulge in the tower's walls, revealing the supplies they had. Just because he thought he was the only one that could climb to their refuge didn't mean he was going to just leave things out in the open; no offense to his companion but cripples didn't exactly make for the best guards.

Something was bothering him, but he only really focused on it once the impromptu food locker was closed once more. "…Wait."

The other made great use of the functional part of his body in quirking an eyebrow.

"Your eye looks… different."

His puzzled expression settled into a certainty of 'oh, so you're just being stupid.' "You mean besides the black eye?"

He didn't have to be paralyzed below the neck to return the look in due kind. "No. That actually looks better. There's this… I don't know, some kind of weird black thing sticking out of it."

One shoulder twitched before the lighter-haired one remembered that his arms didn't work. "Yeah, that's great. I'll let you know if it starts telling me to kill you."

"Well someone's in a great mood." He crouched in front of the fire pit, studying what was there. "Aww hell, we need more wood… So not looking forward to that."

"I was asleep." He turned his head, leaning against the wall that his inert body was already braced against.

"You might as well get back to it. I'm gonna see if I can track down something to burn before it gets dark." From this angle, the mark looked even more prominent; like a dribble of ink that ran straight down from the center of the eye, two more lines reaching out from it. The bruise sat right over the strange mark, like some kind of strange overcast. He made a show of swatting dirt futilely from the knees of his pants so his companion wouldn't catch him staring. "Might as well get this over with…"

He swung over the edge of the tower, both hands sinking into the strangely compliant wall this time, already looking down to make sure nothing was waiting for him at the bottom.

"…Hey."

"Yeah?" He peered back over the edge of the wall; the other survivor's head was still turned, and his eyes were closed.

A brief hesitation, as if he wasn't sure if he should really say this. "…Don't get yourself killed."

There might have been a faint half-smile, but it was hidden by the edge as he slipped back down. "That's the policy."

It was a small comfort in a town gone crazy, to know that somebody was at least sort of concerned for your welfare. But hell if it didn't help, especially knowing that he was going right back down into the madness.

Back to the chase.

Description
It was a run that spared nothing for dignity; everything sacrificed for the sake of speed. Dirt-smeared fingers clutched at a shapeless, cloth-wrapped lump, legs pounding in wide motions on the ruined street.

It was silent at first; his footsteps all but echoed against the pavement. Then came the cries.

A thousand of them at once, a hellish sound spewed from the countless mob of gaping red throats. So many black bodies scrambling on short legs while red eyes blazed. Someone of poetic persuasion might describe them as a legion of Hell; surely the beasts in their mad scramble formed a sort of rank, one particularly adventurous one with better-developed appendages out in front like a commanding officer.

The runner glanced back, a quick movement that threw dark brown bangs away from his face. Same-colored eyes studied the distance, the number of the creatures, and came to a conclusion.

He veered off the path.

These were the lesser predators; certainly deadly for the numbers they traveled in, but stupid. Still young, young and small, with no way of understanding the dog-eat-dog world that the town had become. They did not spare a second, galvanized by the presence of untainted energy, the scent of blood…

The runner stopped, his shoes biting into the dry, cracked soil. He turned, aimed, and kicked hard at the ground, his foot angled to strike with the edge of his shoe.

The earth beneath him bucked like a wave in a lake; as it rolled towards the demons it swelled and grew, and suddenly the wave was bristling with spikes that bit into unprotected slime with a cacophony of shrieks. The impaled burst like balloons, splattering black ichor across the ruins of a garden.

He didn't wait to see how many he had taken down, or which of the remainder were fighting through the spikes to continue the chase. He just turned and kept going, ducking between two derelict houses.

It was the eighth day of the Plague. If there were any psychologists in the area not fighting for their lives, locked in their own head, or otherwise occupied, it was also conclusive proof that anything, even monsters quite possibly from the bowels of the underworld itself, could become routine if one survived it long enough.

A massive earthen wall filled his sight; even in the few short days that he'd come to call it 'home', it was still a great source of relief from the demon-infested streets.

Without breaking stride, he leapt onto it, scrabbling up the sheer face as well as one can with only three limbs available and an unwieldy burden. It was just dirt, all told, but it held like rock… except when he needed a handhold, or a foothold, where his fingers just sank into it like it was… well, dry, powdery dirt, like the kind that it really was and not what it acted like when he wasn't climbing it.

He reached the top relatively easily, grabbing the rim and hauling himself over without even being all that out of breath. The run was more tiring than climbing his makeshift refuge. Well, their. He supposed he owed that much to the tower's other occupant.

"The hell were you doing down there?" It was about as much of a greeting as he was going to get. Whether it was from being near-completely paralyzed or the fact that everything around them was a wasteland worthy of the apocalypse, the stranger seemed to be in some degree of bad mood 24-7. He had a feeling that part of it was just the other's MO.

"Oh, evil monsters trying to eat my flesh." He set about untying the bundle and checking its contents. He'd grabbed mostly cans, figuring that stockpiling didn't hurt in times like these.

"What else is new?" There was a slight shift in movement across the platform. Sandy hair, lighter brown eyes, the left of which still boasted a fantastic purple-black bruise from a certain up-close and personal encounter with a scrap of pavement. He still felt bad about that, but at least it wasn't quite as bad as it had been.

Neither of them had mentioned anything in the way of a name. It just hadn't come up. When they needed something, a "hey" sufficed, and it wasn't as if they had to identify who they were talking to.

The lighter-haired man tilted his head a bit, trying to make out what he was doing without drawing attention to the need for further movement. The broken spine was a sore point, probably from the heavy feeling of dependence that came with it; he could move his head and neck, and periodically his shoulders would twitch in an encouragingly voluntary manner, but that was it, and no further motor skills seemed forthcoming. Finally, curiosity won over pride. "What's that?"

"Cans. Hope you like soup, because that's pretty much all there was. I wasn't the first person to think of a grocery store, apparently." With a few, quick movements of his wrist, he opened a bulge in the tower's walls, revealing the supplies they had. Just because he thought he was the only one that could climb to their refuge didn't mean he was going to just leave things out in the open; no offense to his companion but cripples didn't exactly make for the best guards.

Something was bothering him, but he only really focused on it once the impromptu food locker was closed once more. "…Wait."

The other made great use of the functional part of his body in quirking an eyebrow.

"Your eye looks… different."

His puzzled expression settled into a certainty of 'oh, so you're just being stupid.' "You mean besides the black eye?"

He didn't have to be paralyzed below the neck to return the look in due kind. "No. That actually looks better. There's this… I don't know, some kind of weird black thing sticking out of it."

One shoulder twitched before the lighter-haired one remembered that his arms didn't work. "Yeah, that's great. I'll let you know if it starts telling me to kill you."

"Well someone's in a great mood." He crouched in front of the fire pit, studying what was there. "Aww hell, we need more wood… So not looking forward to that."

"I was asleep." He turned his head, leaning against the wall that his inert body was already braced against.

"You might as well get back to it. I'm gonna see if I can track down something to burn before it gets dark." From this angle, the mark looked even more prominent; like a dribble of ink that ran straight down from the center of the eye, two more lines reaching out from it. The bruise sat right over the strange mark, like some kind of strange overcast. He made a show of swatting dirt futilely from the knees of his pants so his companion wouldn't catch him staring. "Might as well get this over with…"

He swung over the edge of the tower, both hands sinking into the strangely compliant wall this time, already looking down to make sure nothing was waiting for him at the bottom.

"…Hey."

"Yeah?" He peered back over the edge of the wall; the other survivor's head was still turned, and his eyes were closed.

A brief hesitation, as if he wasn't sure if he should really say this. "…Don't get yourself killed."

There might have been a faint half-smile, but it was hidden by the edge as he slipped back down. "That's the policy."

It was a small comfort in a town gone crazy, to know that somebody was at least sort of concerned for your welfare. But hell if it didn't help, especially knowing that he was going right back down into the madness.

Back to the chase.